Chapter 1. When You Kiss A Stranger.

The constant blaring of the alarm was impossible to ignore, as the sound slammed into his head as he curled tighter into a ball into his nice, soft, comfortable bed. He never wanted to leave. His room was cloaked in darkness around him as that damned alarm continued to pound into his ears. Finally, Matthew gave up with a small groan, fully surfacing his head from out of his comforter, his hair sprawling out every which way. He slammed his palm into the alarm, glaring at the time that read back to him in bright red letters. It was 6:30 in the morning. Why would anyone voluntarily get up this early?

With a heavy sigh, Matthew detangled himself from his bed and swung his legs over the side, barely reacting in time to avoid stepping on his cat, who raced out from under his bed at his sudden movement. Matthew rolled his eyes as he blearily stood up, looking around this room. Everything was blurry…

It took him a few seconds to realize that his glasses were still on the nightstand and grumbled to himself as he walked over and swiftly picked them up, placing them on their rightful place on the bridge of his nose as he left his still dark room.

He blinked in surprise at the bright hallway, flooded with the "lovely" morning sun and he grumbled to himself, stumbling to the door right across the hall from him. As per usual, his slammed his fist as hard as he could into the wood, shaking the door with the force of it.

"Al!" Matthew shouted, knowing full well that their parents had already left for work, as usual. "Wake up!" Matthew snapped and he heard a loud thud from the other side of the door. Neither he nor his brother did well with mornings, but Matthew was the only one who could wake up with an alarm clock, as horrifying as it was. "Al! I'm taking a shower first!" He warned his brother, but the door was soon flung open, the force of it making Matthew's hair fly in his face. He barely got a chance to glimpse at his brother's face before the boy ran down the hall and slammed the door to their shared bathroom closed. Matthew groaned, throwing his head back.

Just a usual morning.

Matthew grumbled to himself as he marched back to his room, his white cat, Kumajiki, crawling out in to the light of day lazily. With a sigh, Matthew started gathering up the homework he had worked on the night before, shoving it into his backpack. Alfred usually took quick showers and pulled himself together pretty fast, so it would only be a few minutes before Matthew could take a shower, too. He carefully set out his clothes for that day, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt for a band no one had heard of, and his usual bright red sweatshirt to make sure no one saw it. And, of course, his trusty converse that he'd had for three years running now.

He heard Alfred trot along outside the hall and Matthew snuck by him, ignoring the fact that Alfred refused to wear a towel for some stupid reason, and he snuck into the already wet bathroom, turning on the shower again, because Alfred didn't think to keep it on. As usual.

Matthew glanced at the mirror, grimacing at the deep bags under his eyes, even with his glasses, and his incredibly tangled wheat-blonde hair. Usually, it was very well kept, it was only a problem when he slept because his long hair had a tendency to get tangled. Setting his glasses aside for now, Matthew climbed into the shower, after peeling off his dirty pajamas, and took a quick shower, attacking his tangles viscously with a comb as he did so. By the time he was finished, he could look in the mirror and actually recognize himself and his indigo eyes actually had a bit of their usual shine to them. He brushed his teeth before darting out of the bathroom (with a towel) and ducked into his room. He quickly got dressed before meeting his twin downstairs in the kitchen.

"Don't you dare," Matthew snapped, already seeing Alfred with a pan in his hand. Alfred blinked at him innocently with his bright blue eyes and his usual kicked-puppy pout. He and Alfred shared a hair color, but had long-since decided that they would always have a different hairstyle to avoid being confused for each other. So his was cut clean and short. Never any tangles to be found. He never dressed to impress anyone, yet all of the girls would trip over themselves for him. Jeans and a T-shirt for a hero as always, today's was Captain America (surprise), but the shirts were tight enough to show off the muscles he got from football. Matthew was in a sport, too, but he never really got any of the muscles Alfred had. They were twins, but Alfred just had a better metabolism and grew faster, nearly leaving Matthew in the dust if it weren't for this summer's growth spurt.

"What?" Alfred whined. "I just wanted bacon and you were taking so looong."

"I don't trust you with anything in this kitchen," Matthew sighed, taking the pan from his brother. "I'll make bacon if you want it that badly. And pancakes."

"We always have pancakes," Alfred sighed heavily, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest in a pout. "I'm a growing boy, I need variety."

Matthew sighed heavily. "I'll let you put chocolate chips in them this time," Matthew said and Alfred's interest immediately perked up.

"Do you know what you should do?" Alfred smirked as Matthew started cooking the bacon before pulling out the ingredients to quickly put together some pancakes. They still had some time before getting to school and both boys ate a lot very quickly, so there wouldn't be any problems. "I saw this thing online where someone baked a piece of bacon into a freaking pancake. You should do that!"

"No," Matthew said bluntly. "I'd never degrade a pancake like that."

"Whatever," Alfred scoffed and left Matthew to work in peace. Finally, once Matthew had three pancakes for each of them on plates and plenty of maple syrup, they sat down at the table and ate quickly. "Oh, Matt," Alfred said with a mouthful of food, a habit he'd picked up since he was 4. "I'm gonna need the car after school today. After football, there's this study group for my physics class at the library. That cool?"

Matthew made sure to take the time to swallow. "Sure," he smiled. "As long as I get it on the weekend. I've got a hockey game on Sunday and I need to make sure I'm well prepared for it."

"Fine," Alfred muttered. "I'll just ask someone for a ride to Feli's party."

"Perfect," Matthew smiled. They finished their food, rinsed off their plates, and then ducked out to their car.

Gilbert stretched happily in his bed, his bright yellow chick, Gilbird, tweeting at him as he moved off of his head. His alarm had gone off at 4:30, as usual, and it felt like a good morning. He quickly stood up, raking his hand through his hair to get out any knots that might have formed, shaking the sleep out of his eyes as he dove for his closet. He got out his usual workout clothes, a black tank and black shorts, and quickly shoved his feet into his shoes.

By the time he left his room, he could already hear the dogs downstairs stirring happily. Gilbert smirked, happy that they weren't barking this morning, that made his parents even more angry than usual, and he snatched their leashes off their hooks on the wall. He heard his brother's footsteps come down the stairs once he'd finally gotten the devices on the excited dogs.

"You ready to go, Luddie?" Gilbert smirked, turning to his brother. They looked incredibly different for brothers. Ludwig was strong, obviously well built, and was usually well-kept, except during their work outs. His usually slicked back, blonde hair was hanging loose for now, his cold blue eyes still lightly traced with sleep. He wore clothing similar to Gilbert, though it had been cleaned a bit more than Gilbert's. Gilbert, on the other hand, was lean. Still muscular, but not quite obvious. His white hair was always ragged, he never really did anything to it, much to the dismay of a certain French friend, and his ruby eyes were more than ready to be awake. He'd actually gotten a fair amount of sleep that night, too. Perfect. Ludwig was younger, but he grew a little bit faster, resulting in a small height difference, but Gilbert was still growing so he didn't quite care.

"Our run yesterday was a little too long," Ludwig muttered, taking the leashes of two of the dogs. He never trusted Gilbert with more than one because he usually let go of the leashes after a while to let the dog do what it wanted. "We can go for the shorter route today."

"Alright, sir," Gilbert half-heartedly saluted him before opening the door wide for them to make it through with the dogs, and carefully closed the door. He didn't want to wake his parents, after all.

The morning air was still kind of warm, thankfully, considering it was just early September. The leaves were only just starting to change colors, something Gilbert loved when he went for his runs, watching as the sun rose over the horizon. As usual, he and Ludwig set a pretty fast pace, but the dogs were able to keep up pretty well. They circled around a nearby park before returning home, panting slightly from the exhaustion, and dripping with sweat. It got warm really fast as the sun began to rise. Ludwig let the dogs into the backyard while Gilbert ran upstairs, into his room, to take a quick shower. He loved having is bathroom connect to his room, never having to worry about sharing it with his brother and all of the product he used to keep his hair slicked back.

In a matter of minutes, Gilbert was ready to go, having thrown on simple skinny jeans and a shirt with the most awesome flag ever, the Prussian Eagle. He climbed down the stairs and took out a few granola bars from the pantry, glancing at the clock. Perfectly on schedule, as always.

"Oi, Luddie, take any longer and we're gonna miss the bus," Gilbert called up to him.

"We've never missed the bus," Ludwig shook his head as he came down the stairs. He was dressed modestly, as always, a pair of jeans and a simple shirt with no particular design on it.

"You should really dress up for your boyfriend someday," Gilbert smirked, tossing a few bars to his brother, who caught them easily.

"Feliciano is nothing of the sort," Ludwig sighed, walking to the front door.

"Oh, I'm sure he's not," Gilbert smirked, following him out the door and to their bus stop.

After taking the time to park in a spot where their precious car wouldn't get hit, Alfred and Matthew darted their separate ways. Alfred went to join his usual friends and Matthew immediately went to his locker. He had to be quick, because they were running a little late. He had to get his math binder out and go as his teacher a question before school started. He chose to ignore the usual, strange sounds that came out of the classroom right next to his locker. No classes occurred in that room, apparently it was used for storage for some of the science teachers, one-time experiments and such. Matthew had also heard that it was home to the Dark Magic Club, which housed a single member, one of the weirdest kids in school that never really socialized with anyone. Matthew didn't know his name, he wasn't about to get caught up in those crazy rumors, but he still just ignored the room every time he passed it.

He quickly opened his locker, bumped past some of Alfred's junk that he insisted on keeping in there but never used, and pulled out his math binder. He slammed the door closed and started on his way, all but running to get to his destination on time, but he was quickly cut off when he ran right into someone and they tumbled onto the ground together.

The bus was late, as usual, not much of a surprise there. And they arrived at school later than usual, also not much of a surprise. While on the bus, Gilbert met up with his friend, Antonio, a transfer from Spain, who came about a year ago and decided to stay for the rest of the school year, he liked the school so much. Their school was what was referred to as an "international" school, where people from all over the country could choose to send their kids for a semester or a year, and it was open to a lot of families that moved in from around the world and hadn't quite gotten used to American culture yet. And then, of course, the Americans that lived near it went as well, making a nice little melting pot. Gilbert's heritage was a hundred percent German, but he'd been born and raised in America. Antonio, on the other hand, had grown up in Spain and was living on his own in some apartments the school treated like off-campus dorms while he went to school.

Gilbert and Antonio, when combined with Francis, were kind of like a well-known trio around the school. Francis was from France, his family had moved five years ago to America, and one of the most flirtatious men Gilbert had ever met. But he told Gilbert that he had never flirted with anyone seriously, he was just waiting for the right one to come by. The three of them were known for pulling pranks at any available time or location, and being troublemakers in general. (They were also known for being incredibly good looking, all three of them, but that was for the girls to decide, not Gilbert).

Once the bus finally arrived, Gilbert and Antonio immediately went off to find Francis while Gilbert allowed his brother to stay in the parking lot to wait for Feliciano to arrive with his brother. They were Italians, staying there while their grandfather went on a world-wide business trip, and it was a wonder in itself that they could actually get their car into the parking lot without crashing it.

They met Francis near the band hall, where he was talking to a new exchange student from Seychelles, Michelle, but he deserted her once he saw his friends.

"Mes amis!" Francis smiled happily. "How are you two this morning?"

"Just a regular Tuesday," Gilbert shrugged.

"I bet you got up at 4:30 again," Antonio sighed heavily and Gilbert shrugged. "I don't know how you do it. I need my sleep. I don't know what I'd do without 10 hours of sleep and my 3 hour siesta."

"That would be why you are failing most of your classes," Francis chuckled. "Including Spanish."

"Hey, I'm trying," Antonio laughed.

"Hey, Gilbert, didn't you say something about talking to a teacher this morning?" Francis asked and Gilbert blinked before it actually registered to him.

"Shit," Gilbert groaned. "I'll see you guys later." He had to talk to his English teacher. He got a shit grade on that last essay and his parents were going to kill him unless he could do something about it. He ran off, darting through the hallways that were already starting to get full. He passed by the usual row of lockers, his backpack hitting him as he ran quickly, hoping to catch the teacher in time. He passed by the Dark Magic Club room, laughing slightly to himself. He'd bet that the weirdo in charge was doing some kind of "incantation" of some sort. He wasn't even looking forward and realized his mistake as he slammed right into some other kid, who was also running, apparently.

They tumbled roughly to the ground, their faces slamming awkwardly together, resulting in their lips meeting for just a fraction of a second. In that second, the unfamiliar words coming from the Dark Magic Club seemed to ring in his ears. Gilbert knew he had fallen on his back, but he felt himself with his hands and knees on the ground, someone beneath him while his vision cleared.

When it did, he was staring into the shocked face of…himself…?

And I'm gonna leave it like that because it's fun! Ta-da! New fic, everybody. I just graduated high school and what do I decide to do? Write a high school fic…Whatever, it'll be fun, regardless. So this story was lightly inspired by Yamada-kun And The Seven Witches, a great anime and manga I recommend to all of you. It's not going to follow that plot, at all, so don't worry. But I'm pretty excited for this plot, not gonna lie.

Anyway, pairings for this story include PruCan as the main, obviously, RusAme and FrUK playing major rolls as well. GerIta's gonna be in the background, as well as AusHun, but they're not extremely obvious or anything.

Also, my best wishes go out to everyone in the USA today, the great day we legalized gay marriage across the country. I dearly hope that soon we can spread this same joy all the way across the world and make everywhere a safe place for the entire Spectrum. I'm posting this first chapter as my own kind of celebration of this day. I look forward to a happy future!

Anyway, that's all I've got here, so please review. It's very nice, tell me what you think of this fic so far and I'll see you all soon.

And I do not and never will own Hetalia or anything associated with it. Thanks.